


just found heaven

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Episode: s03e05 4722 Hours, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23933689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: All in all, things are going well for their trip across the gorge. Will really should've seen the bad coming.
Relationships: Will Daniels/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	just found heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Daughtry song of the same name, which is very Jemma/Will.

They get lucky. Will hasn’t been out to the gorge in years and the grappling hook was the best idea he could come up with on only a few days notice, so the large, jutting stones on either side of the gorge at the portal site are the best they could’ve asked for.

Second try he gets the hook into the narrow space between two stones. They’re far enough back from the edge they’ll provide a nice landing space on the other side. And there’s enough slack left in the rope he can wrap it around a huge, immovable rock on this side more times than he needs to feel comfortable. All in all, things are going damn well.

So he really should’ve seen the bad coming.

He hops down from the stone he’s been setting up on. “You ready?”

Jemma’s been quiet while he’s been working, but he figures that’s just nerves or exhaustion from the long walk and the climb up here. She’s gotten herself ready though and he checks her harness to be sure it’s secure. It’s the last of the ones NASA sent with his team, so it had better be.

“I’m not really a rock climbing guy,” he says, mostly to avoid the fact he’s gotta touch her to do this, “but NASA made sure everyone was proficient with all the safety equipment so I’ve got you covered.”

She doesn’t smile or even really respond. She’s looking ahead at the other side of the gorge and the way home. Probably thinking about showers and cheeseburgers and finally seeing Fitz again.

“You’re good.” He steps back, eager for some space. “Now you just climb up there, clip yourself on, and step off. Let gravity do the rest.”

She doesn’t move.

He follows her gaze and sees, instead of the way home, a jury-rigged grappling hook and an old stretch of rope. No surprise, she’s freaked. He saw the fear in her eyes when she said they’d be ziplining across and he’s heard enough of her nightmares to know a sizable amount of them involve falling. He wishes he could go first, show her it’s safe, but he can’t. Because it might not be. Bone thin as he is, he’s still got a few pounds on her and if that line’s gonna break, it’s not happening _before_ she makes it to the other side.

“Listen, it’s safe,” he says. “I tested that hook a hundred times, it’s not bending. Come on.” That last he says while he lifts her clean off her feet to help her up on the higher stone. They left themselves a buffer before the opening so they wouldn’t be rushing through this, but that doesn’t mean they have infinite time here.

“No!” As soon as her feet are off the ground, Jemma yells and twists so violently he drops her.

She presses her back against the stone. Her breathing’s heavy, skin pale, eyes darting every which way like an animal looking for a way out.

“I can’t do this,” she says, tearing out of the harness. “I- I can’t-”

He’s seen this before. But it was-

His gut clenches.

Not Jemma, he thinks. Please not Jemma too.

“Jemma,” he says, soft and gentle and praying for the first time in years that it not be true. “You have to. It’s the only way home, you said so yourself. I know it’s not OSHA certified but it’s the best we’re gonna get. It’s safe, I swear.” He hopes he’s not lying.

He reaches for her, hoping to get her focused on _him_ and not her thoughts spinning out of control. If he can just get her to see him, he thinks, that’ll be enough to push It out of her head.

She sees him all right. Just about jumps right out of her skin.

But even while It’s feeding her fear and paranoia and driving her ever closer to hysteria, she’s smart. Smart enough to duck, use his proximity and his instinctive _I’m not gonna hurt you, see? I’m backing off_ attitude to pull the gun off his leg and turn it on him.

“ _Jemma_.” He tells his instinct—screaming at him to _back off more_ now the gun’s in play—to shove it. The gorge is at his back—stupid, how could he be so goddamn stupid—and the more space between them, the harder it’s gonna be to subdue her.

“No. You stay away.” Her aim’s flying all over the place. Mostly at him of course, but he just might get lucky.

Yeah, that sure happens a lot.

“You-” She stumbles as she backs up. She’s using the edge of the stone to brace herself, but with the uneven terrain that’s not much help. “You planned this. All along.”

“Getting us home?” It’s damn hard keeping his voice steady and he lets himself laugh to hide how he’s shaking. “I’m pretty sure that was your idea.”

“No. No, you manipulated me. You made me think you were damaged and needed someone to fix you. It was all some sick game so you could-”

“So we could go home,” he says. He’s gotta keep her focused—and keep himself from thinking too much about what she said. Not that it’s not true—he knows he’s a mess of a person after years of isolation—but it kinda sucks she sees it so clearly.

“So you could _kill me!_ I knew it. I knew it when you locked me in that cage and fattened me up and _stabbed me_. How could I forget?”

“Jemma. Think. If I was-” he rolls his eyes- “going to eat you, why would I kill you by dropping you in a gorge? Why go to all this trouble when I could’ve done it when you escaped. Remember? You _told me_ to do it. Why wait?”

“Because you’re bored. I’m the first person you’ve met in fourteen years. Of course you’d want to get as much fun as you could out of me.”

He laughs. Can’t help it. He has _not_ gotten all the fun out of Jemma he’d like to. Not even close.

“See? You’re laughing at me. You’re crazy. A psychopath.” Now she laughs. “Living in a basement. Just like-”

Her laughter throws her head back. Not far. And her gaze lifts to the sky. Not high. But it’s enough. He charges her.

She takes her shot. He feels it burn across his hip, but there’s no impact to arrest his progress. He slams into her. They both go down.

He takes the brunt of it and uses that to control their roll, slowing himself down before she does and turning her so she lands on her stomach beneath him.

He’s got a bungee strap from the supply crates he was gonna use to cross the gorge, since she’ll have the pulley, and hastily wraps it around her arms and legs behind her in a hogtie.

“And I told Dad those roping lessons were pointless,” he mutters as he falls back off her.

She keeps struggling, cursing him and demanding he let her go, she’s not his prisoner, et cetera, et cetera.

He ignores her. Let her tire herself out. Time is slipping away and he needs to figure out how to get her across when she’s never gonna go willingly. He drags himself back up to take another look at his set-up. On the way, he kicks the fallen gun aside. He could’ve used it to _make her_ go, but he just had to go and tell her there was only the one round left.

Maybe she’s crazed enough she’ll forget…

He shakes his head. They don’t have time for him to talk her into anything. He’s gonna have to take her himself.

It’s the last thing he wants to do. Both their weights on the line at once is more than he tested for.

“Impossible odds,” he says to himself. He scrambles up the rock again and cuts off a couple rounds of the anchor rope. There’s still more than the five he wanted for security, so he doesn’t let himself worry.

When he gets back to Jemma, she’s crying.

Fucking It. He swears, they get back to Earth, he’s gonna use all fourteen years of back-pay to buy himself one of those black market nukes and send it through the monolith.

She squirms away when he approaches her with a torn scrap from his shirt. “What are you doing?”

Tied up as she is, she can’t stop him getting the scrap around her eyes. “This is how you get a horse to go somewhere it’s scared to.”

“I am not a horse!” she shrieks. The sound echoes off the stones and down into the gorge.

He ignores her and gets to work.

“Please don’t do this,” she begs. She fights back too, when he releases her arms to tie them at her front instead, but he already tied her legs and he’s kinda sitting on her, so it doesn’t do her much good. “ _Please_ , Will. Don’t make me do this. You don’t understand.”

“I understand you’re afraid of heights and It used that to get inside your head.” The harness is secure around his waist. He found the gunshot wound when he was slipping it on. He’ll need stitches, but that’s the kind of thing that can wait till he’s on Earth. “Now try not to squirm or I might drop you.”

She squirms. She kicks and hits with her bound legs and arms. She even tries to bite him. But he gets her up there eventually and scrambles after.

This is gonna be a problem. He needs her to be still or they’re gonna die for sure. He spares half a second to consider sending her across on her own. Hook her up as planned and push her off; tied up she won’t be able to do anything but let it happen.

Only he’s already wasted time and getting the harness off himself and back on her and-

No. He’s gotta go with the plan he’s got.

“Jemma.” She flinches when he touches her knee. “I know It’s in your head, telling you God only knows what. But you gotta let me do this, all right? I know you’re scared—I am too-”

“So why would I let you-!”

“ _Because I’m scared of failing you!_ ” he bellows over her. He closes his eyes, uses the feel of her warmth beneath his fingers to anchor himself. “I failed everyone. But I can get you home—if you’ll let me.”

For a second he thinks she’s hearing him.

“No,” she moans piteously. “You’re just trying to trick me.”

He sighs. Two nukes. He is sending _two_ nukes.

His best option is to knock her out. But as that has a high chance of causing her brain damage and/or killing her, shocking her into stillness is his best bet.

“I wouldn’t do that. I would never hurt you, Jemma, because-” He stops to drag his hand over his face.

Fuck it.

He kisses her. Pours all his anger and frustration and hopeless _love_ into it. Every time he was soothed by her chatter while she worked on her calculations, every time she said Fitz’s name and shattered his good mood to pieces, every night he woke up with teeth clenched to keep from calling out her name, every teenage flutter of his heart when she gifted him with a smile. All of it he puts into this kiss, the one and only he never dared hope to have.

By the time he’s done, she’s clinging to him and panting in a womanly way that stirs parts of him he really doesn’t have time for right now.

He doesn’t let himself think about it. She’s half-crazed from Its influence; she’ll hate him for this when she snaps out of it.

If she snaps out of it.

And the best chance of that happening is if he can put some distance between the two of them. A few hundred light years should do it.

He heaves her up. The strap he was gonna use to cross goes through her belt loops and hooks onto the harness. The harness hooks to the pulley. Her bound arms go around his neck. And they both go across the abyss.

The added weight does them no favors. He’d hoped to run onto the semi-level surface on the other side, but winds up so low he’s gotta catch them with his legs.

The ankle he definitely didn’t break in his last fight with It screams at the impact, but if he didn’t break it again, his boots are tight enough to keep it braced. He walks them up the incline and barely gets them unhooked before the wind starts up.

“Will-” She’s struggling again, trying to pull her hands free. It’s probably telling her all sorts of shit about his true intentions.

But none of that matters because up ahead, barely five yards from where they’re standing, the ground is opening up.

Thick clouds of sand kick up, obscuring his view.

“Oh, fuck you!” he yells into the wind.

It doesn’t matter. He’s seen the portal. He doesn’t need to see it again.

He heaves Jemma up on his shoulder and sprints.

On his fourth step, his foot hits soft liquid and he pitches forward. The liquid—warm; he remembers that feeling like his mother’s arms—rushes around him. He grips Jemma tight while the currents twist them between worlds. His shoulder slams into something hard that immediately gives, sending them both tumbling into open air and onto harder ground. The liquid of the monolith slips off, back into its natural form, leaving them both gasping like landed fish.

Will pants heavily, letting his eyes adjust to the glow of artificial lights around him and letting his skin soak up the familiar feel of his own atmosphere. God, it even _smells_ like Earth.

Jemma’s the first to speak. “Why,” she gasps, “does this keep happening?”

“I thought you’d be happy about the trip this time. You’re home.” He throws out an arm to take in their very non-hellish surroundings and lets the momentum carry him onto his back. The room they’re in is nothing to look at. Concrete floor. Dark, stone walls. Exposed piping overhead. It’s the best thing he’s seen in years.

Jemma immediately proves that to be a lie when she pops into his field of vision. The lights are a halo around her head, making her look even more like an angel than she normally does.

She’s torn the scrap of fabric from her eyes and he can see how wide and wild they are.

Did the distance not work? Is It still affecting her?

“Why,” she says again, her hands pressing painfully into his chest on the word. “Why do the men in my life keep confessing their feelings for me in life or death situations?”

He opens his mouth—a reflex; he really has no answer for that—and Jemma, as she so often does, takes full advantage. This time he’s the one poured into. Relief and joy and sweetness. It’s better than his dreams.

She pulls back. Her warm breath falls over his face and her hips rock over his. He follows her up and shifts them, so her legs are across his lap. “You need to untie me.”

Her eyes are shut, a smile playing with her lips like his fingers are with the buttons of her blouse.

“Why would I want to do that? You’re so much less trouble when you’re like this.”

That opens her eyes and her mouth in the brightest smile he’s ever seen. She could outshine the damn sun.

Muffled voices accompany the sound of a heavy lock releasing. The door Will hadn’t noticed swings open and a whole gaggle of figures stumble through. The one in front—the only one Will recognizes—stumbles so bad he hits one knee and has to be caught by the taller man behind him.

“This is why,” Jemma says, resting heavy against his chest.

“Fitz,” Will says. The poor guy starts like the word is a gunshot. “Nice to finally meet you.” And, surprisingly, he means it.


End file.
